World Toilet Day: Toilets to Tacloban

Before Typhoon Haiyan hit Tacloban, UNICEF had stocked supplies of a critical emergency item inside the Philippine city — portable toilets. In the aftermath of a natural disaster, toilets are true lifesaver. Today, World Toilet Day, is a good time to focus on that fact.

Sanjay Wijesekera, global head of UNICEF’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programs calls the lack of toilets ”the unmentionable shameless secret for even some very prosperous countries.” It’s not just embarrassing; it’s a global public health crisis.

Without toilets, people defecate wherever they can—in fields, in alleys, near streams. Their fecal matter contaminates drinking water sources. The consumption of polluted water leads to disease, lost workdays for adults and lost school days for children.

About 1,600 children die every day from diseases that are largely preventable through clean toilets, safe water and good hygiene. Just supplying toilets, however, won’t eliminate open defecation and this cycle of pollution, disease and death.

UNICEF encourages entire communities to demand toilets and changes in hygiene practices through a movement called CATS (Community Approaches to Total Sanitation). Through CATS, 25 million people have abandoned open defecation.